


to everything there is a season

by deepandlovelydark



Series: Second Chances [10]
Category: MacGyver (TV 1985)
Genre: 1980s, Adultery, F/M, Humor, POV Bisexual Character, Period Typical Attitudes, Sex, Side order of angst, Wilderness Survival, dry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-09-16
Packaged: 2019-07-13 00:06:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16006124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepandlovelydark/pseuds/deepandlovelydark
Summary: there are these things you're not supposed to do. One of them is your best friend's wife.what's a worse idea than that, though, is freezing to death in a blizzard. so if you're already doing that...well! Might as well die happy.Ish.





	to everything there is a season

"You're cheating on him," Ellen says drowsily. Whoops. He hadn't meant to wake her up. 

"Me? You're the one who's married to him."

Jack shivers as he crawls out from under the tarp. It's a wrench, but the alternative is letting the fire go out, and that's as good as a death sentence. Thirty below and still dropping, best he can guess.  

They never should have come out after him. Mac knows what he's doing in the bush; he's practically-minded, adept, sturdy enough to survive midwinter conditions and barely notice any discomfort. Unencumbered by the crushing weight of expectations, he's probably even enjoying himself. For the first time since his mother's funeral- it's just his way of grieving, and not even a very unusual one.

As he'd tried to explain to Ellen earlier, back at the cafe.

"You don't know everything," she'd said darkly. "Besides. If he dies, I'm a widow. But how about you?"

Hadn't been fair of her, scaring him like that. He'd been half a mile away before she'd managed to catch up with him, lugging a survival pack along and cursing the air blue. 

So now they're who knows how far away from Mission City, down the local Scout trail. Tracking him had been the easiest thing in the world, what with the clear, familiar marks of Mac's boots in the snow. Until the snow had started falling again, filling up their path forwards and backwards. Until the light had begun to fail, and the wind to howl, and their twinned, frantic saviour complex had faded in the face of rather more primeval needs. 

Fire rebuilt now, enough wood to last them another couple hours. He gratefully sinks back into her warm embrace. "About that cheating thing."

"I'm not necessary to him. I used to worry I was, I worried so much I did everything I could to break him of it...why do you think I'd brought you along? I was thinking you could pull him out of it."

"Aw. Damn my good looks and irrepressible charm, huh? Always getting me into trouble."

Actually, at present he's thinking more about hers; her body's still neat, pleasingly svelte. Just about all the women her age in Mission City are weighed down by maternity, and TV dinners and PTA suppers, but Ellen and Mac have kept their looks amazingly- there's a joke around town that they could still double for the homecoming couple, in a pinch. 

"I didn't think he'd come back to life for me," Ellen murmurs. Her hands reach under his jacket, then his shirt, and then turn out to be unpleasantly cold against his bare skin; he yelps. She only presses all the harder. "But for you? Always."

"I dunno about that. He's been concentrating on you the last few years." Jack twists against her a bit, trying to regain a bit of dominion. Result: she grabs him up, rolls over herself until she's pressed hard against the earth, with him resting on top- which is what he'd had in mind, but the position feels less assertive when it's just handed to him like this. And the tarp crackles annoyingly whenever they move. And she's taller than him, which is an attribute he likes in male partners but not with women. 

(He remembers his first crush back in Texas, a plump, laughing Chicana who lived over her family's bakery and slipped him sopaipillas at lunch time. That's his type, that's the sort of person he could imagine settling down with one day, when Minnesota finally gets to him and he flees for somewhere that can't ever get this blasted cold. Tall, spotless blondes who tease endlessly without even knowing they're doing it...that'd been sort of a terrible mistake, but he can't exactly help it.)

"Good job on the peroxide." 

Her laughter is brittle, if reassuring. "Thank you. Mac's been doing it for me lately- cheaper than the hairdressers, you know."

Must be the most distracted lovemaking he's ever attempted. They aren't even really seeing each other, man to woman caught up in the moment. He runs a hand through golden hair, half-closes his eyes. It's almost possible to imagine that he's topping Mac, if he pulls himself up high enough. A little above the waist, not quite touching her breasts-

"Wonder who you're seeing," he murmurs. 

"Nobody," Ellen answers, and the reply surprises him, before he realises how she's taken it. "Not my vice."

"I'm flattered."

"You should be," she whispers, suddenly choked and hard. The small movements of her throat are embarrassing; her blinking is inexplicably obscene. "He loves you. And he wouldn't even admit it to me."

"Shh. Shhh- don't cry. In this weather, that's gonna hurt."

So does the ferocity with which she rips at his jeans, fumbling haplessly with the brassy buttons, and he realises with dismay that he'd never meant to go quite this far. A little affectionate fumbling, sure. Enough of a glow to send them both asleep, but not actually going all the way- damn it, she's right. He is cheating. 

(she smells just like Mac, burnt coffee and sweat. he wants her because she's almost right; she wants him because he's altogether wrong.)

"Suppose he comes and finds us like this?" Jack ventures. Making the attempt at least, even as he searches for her trousers zip and pulls it down. 

"He won't," Ellen says. "He's gone. He'll hit Iowa by Thursday, and keep moving from there, and never look back...and I'm glad. I'm so glad. We've kept him back all these years."

"We? What the hell do you mean, we?"

"If you'd left- if you'd left for good, don't you think he would have followed you?"

 _Of course not!_ he wants to scream.  _As though stupid, faithful Mac would have ever dreamed of quitting Mission City!_

But it doesn't need to be said. If she wants to be a romantic about it, fine. Might as well keep her illusions. 

They have a tarp and a blanket and two coats to hold back the cold, which is nothing like enough. Nobody knows where they are, including them. They're gonna end up as one of those tabloid tragedies he chuckles over, two idiots who wandered out brainlessly and got frozen into popsicles for their trouble. 

"I guess so," Jack says, panting a little as he pushes downwards. He's not in the mood for foreplay, and he doubts she is either; this'll be hard and fast and straightforward. "I guess- maybe it could have turned out better that way-

"You can stop concentrating on the conversation," she says, almost smiling. "I know that for men it's rather a strain." 

By men, of course, she means Mac. Not like she ever worked up the nerve to date anybody else. 

"Don't- um-"  _what the hell is the word Mac would say._ "Don't overgeneralise. Y'think silver-tongued Jack Dalton's gonna shut up that easily?"

(actually, it is incredibly fucking difficult to keep this up and stick to that light-hearted hustler tone and head off that line of thought about how soon both of them are going to die- but damn it, he's never left a partner more depressed than when they started. If he's gonna do this, he's going to do it right.)

"What are you doing?" she asks, as he shifts again. Resting his weight on the left arm, feeling around with his right.  

"Just a bit of- extracurricular. Stimulation. Ever heard of a G-spot?"

"Right," she says, completely unimpressed. "Yes, but I hadn't counted on a- never mind." Her breathing's quickening; he lets his speed up in response. 

"On a what?" Sweet, summery images flash through his mind, each more seductive than the last. Mac in his leather jacket, or those tight Henley shirts, or shirtless altogether and going for a dip-

"I'm sorry."

"As a _what_?"

"On a fucking queer knowing!" 

She screams. He doesn't. They trail off into meaningless, thorough, absolute pleasure, if only the bodily sort.

(Nothing's been resolved between them, nothing's been fixed. If Mac came and rescued them now, they'd be no nearer a resolution. He'll never leave Minnesota, because Mac needs him too badly. And visa versa.)

"You're supposed to pull out now," Ellen says eventually. "And then fall asleep. Preferably in that order."

"Leaving both of us all soggy? Besides, this is the warmest I've been all day."

"Oh, get off."

"What, again?"

She groans and shoves a handkerchief into his hand. "For the love of Christ, Jack, what does it take to make you shut up?"

"Food? Food usually works." It's all right for some, she can have a quick wipe and still keep her trousers on. By the time he's cleaned up it feels like the exposed bits of anatomy are about to fall off; he struggles out of his flight jacket and tucks it around his waist. Nestles shivering against Ellen. 

"You already got through all the granola I brought along. Cheer up, you'll freeze to death a lot quicker than you'll starve."

"That's not the point. That is so far from the point, it's in a different zip code- did you hear something?"

"Help!" Ellen bellows, in a voice calculated to wake the dead. "Help! Anybody!"

There's an indistinct call, obviously far off in the distance, but Ellen moves like lightning anyway. Whips out from under the tarp and sets herself on the other side of the fire, toying with the wood pile. Jack pulls his cap on again and sets himself to a plausible pretense of sleep. It's lucky he practices at this. 

Next thing he knows is the slightly confused realisation that he had, in fact, fallen asleep. There's no way that Mac just appeared out of the blue like that. 

"You two  _idiots!"_

"We were worried about you," Ellen says, quite unflappable. "We didn't know if you were coming back."

"Of course I was coming back. I have to look after you, don't I? Especially if you're going to try to pull stupid stunts like- like this-"

"Like you did yourself?"

"That's different," Mac says, crossing his arms and looking the tiniest bit smug. "You know I can take care of myself out here."

"Hurrah," Jack mutters. "How do we get home?"

"Oh, it's easy. It's right in that direction."

"Great!"

"About seven or eight miles."

"...not great," Jack and Ellen say. Simultaneously. 

"Geez," Mac says, his face crinkling in a genuine smile. "Anybody would think you two didn't like Minnesota, or something..."

***********

By the time they've made it back to the cafe, the dawn's just starting to fade. Sunday morning, so nobody's expecting the place to be open. (Mac picked some considerate timing for his breakdown. That was probably deliberate.)

"We'll just have time to make the morning service, if we hurry," Ellen says fussily. Her regular manners are enveloping her again, picked up with the central heating and the ever-constant scent of coffee; less vital, somehow less real than the woman in the woods. "I know you don't generally go, but perhaps today's a good time for a fresh start."

It's an olive branch, he can see that. The hustler in him says to take her offer, and ply it for everything it's worth. Even if it turns out not to be much of anything. 

"I'd hate to be a hypocrite," Jack says, not looking at Mac. "So I guess I'll just head home."

Home to a cold trailer and an empty fridge. The prospect of getting up from this softly cushioned booth doesn't appeal in the slightest, come to think of it. 

"Look, Ellen, let's give it a miss this week," Mac says gently. "We're all tired, I'm hungry, we can just stay in and be cosy for once. I'll make pancakes."

"There's more to life than satisfying appetites," Ellen says, an odd look on her face; and it hits Jack that she's thinking along the same lines as him after all, only in the opposite direction. "But I suppose I can go by myself."

"Okay," Mac says. Very amenable. 

So she goes, and Mac stays. And invites him upstairs to a kitchen that's soon hot and delicious and perfect, with enough bacon and buckwheat-banana pancakes even he can't finish the lot, and Jack dozes off very comfortably on the sofa. Tucked under three soft linen quilts that laugh at the very notion of cold. 

He's not going to lie. He's more than willing to confess the whole truth, ready as anything. 

Just as soon as Mac gets around to asking. 


End file.
